


Looking for the Answer

by stellahibernis



Series: Clear Your Heart [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Love is complicated, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 16:25:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10700712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellahibernis/pseuds/stellahibernis
Summary: Bucky closes his eyes before the machine turns on, before the cold takes him. The last thing he sees is Steve, steady and present. When Bucky opens his eyes, he’s alone. Just as he requested before going under.A few weeks later he has a new arm fully rehabilitated, and his head is all his own again. He's ready to leave, to disappear, because the weight of the expectation, the weight of his old life is too much, and all he wants is a simple life. The last thing he does in Wakanda is to write Steve a letter. Steve is back on track with his life, back with the Avengers, and he doesn’t need Bucky messing it up again, especially not since he’s just going to leave.A few days later Bucky finds himself in New York against his better judgment.





	Looking for the Answer

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second part of the series, timewise it overlaps the first fic, the difference being that this one follows Bucky while the first one follows Steve. This probably works as a stand-alone, but if you read both, I recommend the order they are in the series. There will be third part later.
> 
> As a warning for those sensitive of such things, same as in the first fic, due to the mistaken identity thing there's technically a case of slightly dubious consent here. Even though there is a consent, it's given without full knowledge of facts. However, there's no regret afterward even with the full knowledge, so it's definitely nowhere near the ballpark of archive warnings.

Bucky closes his eyes before the machine turns on, before the cold takes him. The last thing he sees is Steve, steady and present but eyes unmistakably sad. The last thing Bucky thinks of is whether Steve will watch the ice enfold him, or if he will avert his gaze.

When Bucky opens his eyes, he’s alone.

For one definition of alone anyway, because there are people around him, moving and lifting him, wrapping him in blankets, talking to him, explaining what they’re doing even though they don’t seem to expect him to reply. The chill is still in his bones, his body is barely functional. All he can do is wait.

When Bucky’s back on his feet, he is granted an audience with T’Challa. His doctor, Mirembe, is there as well, and they discuss his further care regarding his brain and his arm. Amazingly, it won’t take more than a couple of weeks for everything to be over and done, for Bucky to have a new arm fully rehabilitated, and his head all his own. Bucky agrees to everything they suggest.

Lastly, he thanks them for the care, and thanks them for respecting his request of Steve not being present when he woke up. Before he went under he’d thought it might be difficult to arrange, but apparently Steve has been living in New York for more than two years now, and has only visited Wakanda twice, always on Avengers business. T’Challa looks like he wants to say something more but doesn’t, and Bucky is glad. It’s good to hear that Steve has moved on with his life, but Bucky doesn’t want the details. 

***

On his last night in Wakanda Bucky writes Steve a letter. He’s leaving, but he doesn’t want to just disappear, because he thinks in that case Steve might come after him, regardless of how settled he is in his life in New York these days. Bucky doesn’t want that, he wants Steve to understand that this is his choice.

On the days between Siberia and going back to stasis Bucky had thought a lot about what he wanted to do. The choice to go under had been easy, but deciding what would happen after he woke up not so much. There had been a few days they spent together, recovering from their injuries while Steve had researched the Raft, planning on how to get his friends out once he was healed enough. Bucky had spent most of the time watching Steve.

Once he’d started to remember after DC Steve had been the clearest thing in his memories, even more than all the blood that was entirely too red in his mind’s eye. Still, it had only become real when Steve had been there with him, once they spent some time together.

In Wakanda Bucky had sometimes caught Steve looking at him, just quick glances, but they were so hopeful, so full of happiness, that Bucky couldn’t take it. Steve was looking at him, happy to have his friend back, except he didn’t. Not really. Bucky has now and had then all kinds of memories, but he is fundamentally a different man, forever altered, and the expectation he read in Steve’s eyes then is too much to bear.

It’s cowardly to end it like this, he knows, but he still seals and addresses the envelope. He’s not giving Steve a chance to talk to him, to even say goodbye, as would be the right thing to do. But he can’t. He thinks that if Steve were to object, Bucky would relent, would try to stay with Steve, and he can’t see how that would turn out well. The only future he can see is one of missed expectations and disappointment, the two of them miserable. 

Steve is back on track with his life, back with the Avengers, and he doesn’t need Bucky messing it up again, especially not since he’s just going to leave. The letter will be a much smaller disturbance, Bucky tells himself and almost manages to believe it.

The moment before Bucky went back into cryostasis, that was their goodbye, even if no one actually said the words. Now Bucky will move on, same as Steve already has.

***

Bucky ends up in New York just days after leaving Wakanda, and isn’t it ridiculous, because part of him thinks it’s the last place he wants to be, including all known HYDRA hotspots. And yet.

Definitely not a way to get a clean break, he thinks, and yet he keeps going.

It’s not difficult finding information on Steve these days; he’s on television every few days, wearing perfectly pressed suits, shoulders held straight, his face serious. Less common are the sightings of him in his field uniform, blue with silver stripes these days, the familiar star is still there right in the middle of his chest. Steve is the commander of the Avengers now, and the force is more formally defined, more accepted maybe.

There’s not much information on Steve’s personal life. There are some paparazzi photos of him running in the early mornings, all of them taken in Brooklyn, as well photos of some other outings on the streets. Steve is usually alone, there’s no indication of anyone sharing a life with him. There is some speculation, but not enough that Bucky would think it’s anything to draw a conclusion on. He suspects it’s the kind of thing Steve would want to keep under wraps.

On one hand, Bucky doesn’t want to know about Steve’s new life, doesn’t want to know about things he’s never going to be a part of. On the other hand, he wants to see how Steve is doing, needs to see he’s settled. It’ll be easier to go with that knowledge.

No one pays any attention to him as he walks down the streets, and Bucky doesn’t expect to be recognized either. His clothes are new, his hair is different and the beard he’s been growing since he woke up from cryostasis is long enough to hide the shape of his jaw. He keeps it neat, styled to match his hair that’s long enough to shadow his eyes, now brown due to contacts. The final touch is the most difficult but still a second nature for him; the body language. As he goes he assumes the persona, the way of moving and being. It’s confident and easy, apparently relaxed. There’s nothing of the precision of the Winter Soldier in it, nothing of any version of Bucky Barnes that has existed. It’s the American, the persona that always knew how to hide in plain sight, who was invisible because people saw the attractive confidence and not the assassin behind, same as they now don’t see the person behind it.

It’s not difficult for him to find out where Steve lives, and as he walks toward the house in Williamsburg, Bucky wonders what exactly he is going to do. There’s no guarantee that Steve even is at home since it’s Halloween, and apparently there will be some kind of a party at the Avengers Tower. Steve might just be there. Or he might be at home, and Bucky can’t help but wonder if he’s alone, or if he lives with someone now. Maybe this time around he has gotten together with a Carter, maybe this time the world hasn’t thrown a stopper to it.

Bucky stops to buy a simple black domino mask, and with it on he fits right into the celebratory crowd, knowing he’s even less recognizable. He finally comes to Steve’s street and finds a vantage point at a corner of the street. He settles there, and digs out a cigarette. Smoking will make it look like he’s waiting for something, and will make Steve pay less attention. He’ll likely expect that if someone is going to be watching they’ll try to stay out of sight as much as possible, most likely on the roof.

There are lights on, and someone is moving behind the curtains, so Steve appears to be home. Bucky isn’t going to show himself, but he wants to see Steve. He hasn’t any time to decide how he’ll go about it, though, before the universe takes care of it for him and a car stops in front of the door, and all the lights inside start to go out.

It’s a jolt in Bucky’s spine to see Steve again, nothing like seeing the pictures. He’s wearing a tux and he has a mask in his hand as he takes the few steps to the car. Bucky stares far more obviously than he should, he half expects Steve to feel the eyes on him, but there’s no reaction as Steve disappears into the car.

Bucky stays where he is, rooted in place, but finally he moves again, pushes himself off the wall and circles the block, finding an access to Steve’s garden. There’s no perimeter alarm, but Bucky knows better than trying the windows or the door. He peers inside through the kitchen windows, and he can’t see much, just clean counters and modern appliances. Steve always was a neat, so Bucky doesn’t know if it’s just after cleaning or if Steve mostly eats elsewhere.

He stands in the middle of the unkempt garden for a moment, and then climbs out again. He’s seen Steve, he should go.

***

Hours later Bucky’s back at his earlier vantage point, and he’s mostly just feeling resigned. It’s an odd compulsion, one he should fight but doesn’t, and he knows why, knows the warring instincts at work. He knows exactly why he wants to get away from Steve and knows why he doesn’t.

It’s earlier than he expects when he sees Steve coming back, this time walking instead of being driven. There are still quite a few people out and about, but Bucky’s eye lands on Steve as soon as he turns the corner. He’s wearing the mask, and no one pays attention to him, no one except Bucky. Steve doesn’t realize he’s being observed this time either.

He walks slowly, and it gives Bucky time to really look at him. What he sees worries him. In the official photos Steve has been commanding, all confident lines and straight shoulders. Even with the paparazzi photos it’s obvious Steve knew they were being taken, and so he was always putting up a front, hiding his heart. Now though, he doesn’t know he’s being observed, and his whole posture is different. His shoulders are hunched, there’s no spring in his step, his head is bowed. He looks tired, defeated, and it’s like something is squeezing Bucky’s heart.

He can tell Steve is not happy, and he knows it’s not just momentary unhappiness, this is more.

Steve disappears into his house where lights come on and Bucky stays rooted in place, unable to decide how to proceed. This is not helping him at all. Again, he thinks he should leave, should already have left, should never have come in the first place, but now he can’t. Not when he’s seen Steve like this, down and dispirited. Only he still doesn’t know what to do, because ringing the bell and talking to Steve is out of the question.

It’s as if Bucky is paralyzed, and he can’t tell how long it has been when he sees the lights go out again at Steve’s. It can’t have been long, he thinks, but he doesn’t know. He expected Steve to be going to sleep, except the lights go out in the wrong order, and the front door opens again.

This time Steve’s posture is filled with determination, obvious from the cadence of his steps, every line of his body, and Bucky would almost think he’s going on a mission. Except he’s still wearing the mask, even though he’s changed his tux for jeans and a leather jacket. Bucky gives Steve half a block of a head start before following on the other side of the street.

It doesn’t take Steve long before he reaches his destination, a club a few blocks from his apartment, and he walks in without a pause. Bucky stops clear on his tracks, though, because even if he’s always known Steve is capable of surprising him, he still never would have expected to see Steve walking into a gay bar.

Bucky leans into the wall and takes out another smoke, even though those have no effect whatsoever on him these days. But the motion is still familiar, still calming. Slightly hysterically he thinks that this at least tells him Steve is not in a relationship with the younger Carter. It also tells Bucky there is a side to his friend that he never knew existed.

Back before the war Bucky knew where to go to get the kind of company that in the wrong circles, even in Bucky’s own, could have gotten him beaten or killed. And he did go, keeping it secret from Steve how he sought the touch of men. He also went out with girls, all the more diligently really, and after he joined the army he stopped seeking men altogether. It had become too risky.

Steve never knew, and now Bucky wonders if Steve used to go too, hiding it just the same from Bucky, or if this is something new. It doesn’t matter really, because there Steve now is, and it occurs to Bucky that due to the mask, because it’s Halloween, this night Steve can do it and it’s not a big deal. Tonight Steve’s not the leader of the Avengers, he’s just another man in a mask. One with a spectacular line of shoulders, but all the same.

Bucky is halfway across the street before the decision he’s made even registers, and as he’s already moving he doesn’t let hesitations stop him. Inside it only takes him a few moments to spot Steve, and when he does, it’s another surprise. Steve is on the dance floor, moving to the music. He’s not an expert by any means, but he looks comfortable, looks like he belongs there. The lights reflect from his hair with every color of the spectrum and there is a sheen of perspiration at his throat. Bucky can see that several of the other patrons are looking at Steve, even touching him, and while Steve doesn’t linger with anyone, he clearly doesn’t mind the attention.

Bucky would think he was dreaming, because he can’t quite believe this isn’t just a fantasy his mind has cooked up. Only he hasn’t had good dreams in decades.

It’s stupid, it’s risky, but Bucky takes a stronger grip of the American inside his head, fuses into his mind how he needs to move, and steps onto the dance floor. Nearly immediately there are hands on him; Bucky has been peripherally aware of the attention on him, but it hasn’t mattered, he only cares about Steve. He gently shakes the touch away and makes his way toward Steve. It’s slow going, people are absorbed into the music and keep bumping into him. Steve still hasn’t seen him.

Bucky’s right in front of him before Steve registers him, and at the first glance Bucky knows Steve doesn’t recognize him. To a tiny part of him it feels wrong, a cold prick right through his heart, and there’s a flash of thought on whether that was how Steve felt when Bucky looked at him without recognition. But this isn’t the same; Steve doesn’t recognize Bucky because he’s not expecting to see him, and because Bucky very deliberately means for him not to.

Steve’s eyes are bright blue under the lights, his skin luminous, and his lips curve into a smile as he takes Bucky in. It’s automatic really for Bucky to step closer, to put his left hand on Steve’s hip to pull him flush against his body. Steve settles his arms loosely around Bucky’s neck, and he’s so close that Bucky’s head is spinning, even as he moves them now together to the music.

Bucky keeps his left hand on Steve’s hip where Steve won’t realize it’s not flesh and bone. He has the skin mimicking camouflage on, but it only goes so far. Steve is all hard lines against his body, familiar and not. It’s not the first time Bucky is pressed against Steve, not by a long shot. There were the friendly hugs, cold nights in Brooklyn when Steve was sick and they needed to share warmth, and even colder nights on the front during the winters when sleeping pressed into someone was basic survival. He knows Steve’s body, and yet he doesn’t know this, because the intent is new. It is pure desire, foreplay really, and every bit of him reacts when Steve presses closer.

This is what Bucky has wanted for a long time, since decades ago, since before the war. He has wanted to know what it would feel like to have Steve pressed against him, breathing the same air, and now he has it. Only to Steve he’s not Bucky, he’s just a man Steve’s never met before, and maybe that makes it easy, because there are no expectations.

And in a way it makes it easy for Bucky too, to have Steve look at him, to have the heat of that gaze on him without any expectations, without fear of the light dimming because the reality doesn’t match the memories Steve has of Bucky, without fear of being found wanting compared to a ghost.

Bucky runs his hand over the smooth fabric of Steve’s shirt, over the muscles of his back. They can have this, he thinks. He can have this, and he can give Steve what he apparently wants; the simplicity of a stranger, the uncomplicated physicality. He pulls away and drags Steve after him.

***

Bucky doesn’t let Steve put on the lights at his place, manhandling him forward into the apartment, hiding his real strength and trusting the signals he’s been getting that Steve is willing to let go of control. Steve doesn’t resist at all, and it’s probably a relief for him too, since as far as Steve knows Bucky’s not aware of who he is, which most likely is what Steve wants. Hence Bucky leaves the mask alone, and sets to kissing Steve’s neck from behind and pulling his belt open as they make it toward the bedroom at the back of the house.

He has to let go for a moment as Steve pulls his shirt off and Bucky takes a quick look around, registering that the layout is odd, but he doesn’t think of it any more than that. Steve throws his shirt away and turns to Bucky, who’s still fully clothed. All the way here he puzzled over how to make this work, because Steve knows him, and if he gets to touch Bucky, if he sees him naked it’ll all be over. As soon as Steve realizes his left arm is a prosthesis, he’ll know.

Bucky has a solution, though, one he’s relatively sure Steve will go with, but for a moment he stops there, just looking. He never expected to get this, and he’d look longer, except there’s a question in Steve’s eyes as he reaches for Bucky, and Bucky can’t have that, can’t have him thinking, and he grabs Steve’s belt and pulls it off his jeans. He gently shoves at Steve, who doesn’t resist at all, just falls onto his bed. 

It takes no time at all to have Steve’s undershirt off, reposition him into the middle of the bed and tie his hands with the belt to the headboard. As Bucky suspected he would, Steve relaxes into it, just waits for what Bucky wants to do, giving himself up. Any other time he’d wonder what he’s done to deserve this, but now he doesn’t. It’s simple really, bodies and desire, nothing more. Of course, it’s not exactly that for him, and in that they are on an uneven ground, but Bucky pushes the thought away. He wants to give this to Steve, wants to make him feel wonderful.

He bends down over Steve, not quite lying on top of him, but holding himself up over him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off Steve. Bucky gets straight to it, sucks a mark on Steve’s throat, and he gets the most wonderful moan for it. Underneath him Steve is moving, writhing, his body seeking friction, but he’s not pulling at the belt at all, which means he wants to stay tied. After all, if Steve wanted to get away the belt wouldn’t hold him.

Steve’s eyes are closed now, sweat drops are pearling on his skin, and Bucky moves downward, taking one hard nipple into his mouth and gets another sound out of Steve. He never expected Steve to be loud in bed, and it’s so much better than in any of his well-worn daydreams.

Steve is trembling already, and Bucky doesn’t feel like playing, so he strips off Steve’s jeans, boots and underwear at one go. He pauses for just a second to look at the long lines of Steve, the expanse of pale skin, his cock standing hard. The darkness leeches all color out of Steve, but Bucky imagines his cock is now the same color as his lips. Steve shifts, spreading his legs probably without realizing he’s doing so, and Bucky doesn’t wait for another invitation before getting between them, taking Steve’s cock in his mouth.

Steve curses and jolts, but Bucky has his hands on Steve’s hips, holding him steady as he sucks Steve in.

This is the first time Bucky has actually wanted to have anyone’s cock in his mouth. He has done it before, back in his youth it was a rite of passage of sorts, when he was new in the queer circles. The men were using his mouth to get off, and later there was the give and take when he was on a more equal ground, but back then he wasn’t that invested in how the other person felt.

Now though, now all Bucky cares about is making Steve feel good, and the sounds he pulls out of Steve go straight in Bucky’s head. He’s getting this, Steve is pliant and panting under his hands, all because of his mouth and tongue on Steve’s skin.

Bucky doesn’t bother with finesse or taking it slow, he knows Steve is definitely on a hair trigger from all the grinding they did at the club. Besides, he also knows Steve can go more than once, so getting the first out of the way will probably help, will make Steve just more responsive. Bucky grips Steve’s hips a bit harder, sucks and bobs his head up and down, and he knows when Steve’s right on the brink. He takes Steve deeper and then pauses, sucks him through until he’s spent and loose.

Bucky takes the moment of Steve’s distraction to go for lube, finds it in the drawer of the nightstand as expected. Coming back he sucks another mark on Steve’s hipbone just because he can before getting back between Steve’s legs. He hikes Steve’s knees up and open for easier access, and kisses along Steve’s abs that are contracting under touch as he slicks his fingers. Steve pushes against the first hint of pressure, and Bucky pushes a finger in, finding a steady rhythm. Steve is moaning again, eyes closed and getting hard, clearly asking for more even though there are no coherent words anymore.

Bucky takes Steve’s cock in his mouth again as he slips in a second finger. It goes easily enough, since Steve is relaxed from his first orgasm, and Bucky keeps going, pushing in and circling his fingers, taking Steve’s cock in deeper. The third finger goes in just as easily; Steve is close again, and Bucky doesn’t let go, just rides out the second orgasm.

Steve doesn’t really go soft this time, and Bucky moves up, allows his weight to rest more on Steve, enjoys the whimper he gets for the catch of fabric on Steve’s damp skin, on his probably too sensitive cock. He grinds his still denim clad cock against Steve’s, and it’s the most beautiful sound in the world, Steve asking, “Please.”

Bucky has his jeans open in record time and he runs a slick hand over his cock, squeezing at the base before pushing in steady and slow. Steve shouts but it’s not pain at all, he takes Bucky easily, and Bucky doesn’t pause, just pulls back and fucks into Steve again. He takes up a pace where he can keep it hard and deep, and Steve just hangs along, wraps his legs over Bucky’s thighs to urge him on and getting even louder and more incoherent.

It doesn’t last long for either of them, Bucky waits for Steve to come before letting go too.

Afterward Steve is spent and exhausted, and doesn’t really make an effort to move as Bucky undoes the belt and guides his arms down. He massages the muscles around Steve’s shoulders and neck a bit, knowing they must be tingling, and then he gets a washcloth from the bathroom.

Steve is fully asleep as Bucky finishes cleaning him up, so he pulls the mask off Steve and tucks him under the covers. Steve looks content and relaxed, and Bucky wonders about it, questions in his mind whether Steve can get like this with strangers or if it’s somehow his subconsciousness that recognized Bucky, that allows him to sleep. Bucky hovers there a moment more, knowing it’s probably the latter.

He knows too that it’s only a few more days until Steve’s scheduled call to Wakanda, and Bucky’s under no illusion of what will happen, he knows Steve will figure this out. By then Bucky will be gone, as per his letter that’s not exactly accurate anymore.

But he has to go, he can’t take the weight of his old life. He can’t be the Bucky Steve knew, and he can’t be this either, can’t be a stranger more than just this once. It’ll be a memory, something Bucky will carry with him to the end.

Bucky makes sure he hasn’t left anything behind before taking a quick look around the house. It registers now to him what he recognized as odd before. In townhouses the master bedroom is usually on one of the upper floors, but Steve’s bed is on the entrance floor. Bucky does a full tour, and there is nothing on the top three floors, just empty rooms. Only the bottom two are furnished. Bucky goes down to the kitchen and dining space to get water for when Steve wakes up since he’ll be parched, and he takes in how everything feels unfinished. Steve has some personal things; books, photos, even a couple of plants, but they look like they’re just left there on top of everything else. The furnishings, while tasteful, are purely functional, there are no additional pillows, table lamps or art on the walls. Steve’s sketchbook and pencils are on the table, but there are no paints or an easel.

Bucky sets the glass down next to the mask Steve wore, and lets himself to just look for a minute more. He crouches down, takes in the relaxed lines of Steve’s face.

“Just try, Steve,” Bucky whispers, and he doesn’t know what exactly he means.

He’s out of the door soon, and heads toward the train station. He’ll take the first one out, no matter which direction.

***

Bucky is roused from his thoughts when the rising sun shines into his eyes. He’s hours away from the city, sitting on a train on his way toward west. He wonders if Steve is still sleeping, if he already knows, or if last night is still just an encounter with a stranger in his mind. In retrospect, Bucky can’t quite explain how he ended up from recklessly being in New York to being anxious over Steve’s state of mind to fucking him while pretending to be a stranger. In retrospect, Bucky knows it was a mistake, knows he shouldn’t have done it, but it’s too late now. Bucky pushes it all away, it’ll do him no good to think about Steve now.

He needs a place where he can settle, where he’ll fit in. He knows that he could find a suitable town in the US, but he doesn’t really want to, thinks it would be holding on to the past. He could go back to Europe, except he tried that already, and he knows HYDRA has a stronger foothold there. In the end he crosses the border from Montana to Canada in a nondescript pickup truck, and his papers don’t raise any questions. 

His face is well known these days, but the hair and the beard and contacts do a lot, and apparently Wakandans did something with his ID so that the image won’t get recognized by the automatic algorithms even if it’s scanned. It’s a precaution, to make sure he’s safe, because even when he’s been pardoned there still probably are HYDRA agents within the law enforcement that would like to get their hands on him. Bucky doesn’t really know the details on how it works, only that it’s the kind of thing that a lot of people would be uncomfortable to find out Wakandans can do. Bucky is fairly sure they’re spying on the whole world, and that everyone should be grateful that they ultimately just want peace.

Bucky drives on, mostly sticking on smaller roads, not really caring about where he’s going, even if he always knows where he is and several routes out of the area if something goes wrong. In a couple of days and probably after a ridiculously long detour he comes to Whitecourt, and decides it’ll do.

The town is large enough that a newcomer won’t be the biggest news of the month, but small enough and far enough away from major cities that the likelihood of HYDRA activity is small. Not that there ever was much in Canada anyway, which is a good reason for Bucky to stay. He’s less keen about the weather; the winter is just around the corner and Bucky knows up here it will be a long haul, but he’ll take it in exchange for the relative safety.

***

Bucky settles fairly quickly into the town. He finds a little house to rent, and gets a job as an electrician. He was trained to be able to set up surveillance, as well as wire explosives and repair things while on mission, and with a little adjusting he gets by well, fixing appliances and rewiring old houses. He makes up a story about being a vet, and people give him space when he needs it.

Bit by bit he gets to know his neighbors; he helps several of the older ones with clearing the snow, goes out to the bar on occasion, and within a couple of months he knows that in the minds of the locals he belongs. No longer a stranger.

He keeps journals still, a habit he started right after he got away from HYDRA. They still help him with sorting out his memories and dealing with everything that has happened. He has nightmares, he has days when he can’t quite make himself believe he’s not being watched, but he gets over them, it gets a bit better as time passes. The journals get filled with other things too, his life in the town, everything he sees and experiences. They move from being just about his past to dealing with the present too.

He’s not quite there yet to include future.

Mrs. Sherman from across the street proposes to introduce him to her granddaughter, and Bucky finds himself telling her he swings the other way. She doesn’t bat an eye, just says she has a grandson too. It’s the first time Bucky has told anyone, maybe the first time he’s acknowledged it for himself, that even back before the war he went with girls because it was something he was expected to do, not because he wanted it. It’s an unexpected relief for it to be just accepted so easily.

Bucky sets up a Google alert for the Avengers, and he watches the news on them the same as anyone, whether it is just routine things or actual missions. He sits at the bar, eyes glued to the television when the coverage from the latest crisis comes in, the footage of the battle choppy but it’s still easy to recognize people. He doesn’t know all the Avengers these days, new enhanced people turned up while he was in cryostasis, but there are plenty of familiar faces.

Bucky knows that sometimes it would be easier to let it all fade into periphery, but he doesn’t want that. He makes himself watch, makes his eyes track the familiar form in dark blue and silver running on the screen, makes himself listen as Steve talks to the reporters. 

He can’t really tell how Steve is doing, all Bucky and the rest of the world get to see is his official face, the one Steve wants to show to the public, and these days Bucky doesn’t know Steve well enough to know how it correlates with him in private. Bucky knows that for all that Steve aims for honesty, he still can hide things, can hide himself.

All Bucky can do is hope Steve is doing better.

***

Bucky is not happy in his new life, not really.

What he is, is content. He’s got a job that provides money for a roof on top of his head, enough food and everything else he needs. There are people he likes to talk to. He’s settled in the town, and he’s safe. There’s no need for fighting. He’s content, and honestly it’s more than he’s experienced in many years, it’s more than he expected to ever get after he walked away from the shore of the Potomac and started to make his own choices.

Bucky knows it would be easy to mix up the feeling of content with that of happiness, especially since either one is so much better than most of his memories. He doesn’t though, he knows the difference. He also knows he could push forward, could take the plunge from his safe existence and to really live. He could bare his soul, let himself feel more, find someone to share a life with. He could find happiness in this little town if he tried. He doesn’t though. He tells himself it’s too risky, that he’s not ready to let anyone new in.

He knows the truth is that he doesn’t really want to.

He is content in a way, and yet not. If he thinks about it, there are things he misses, things he actually doesn’t want to miss, because they don’t belong in this new life that he’s chosen. They’re things he meant to leave behind. There is a path to potential happiness he remembers, even though it’s faint and narrow, and as long as it is there, he can’t truly be content. He thought this was what he wanted, a quiet new life, and maybe he even does want it. He just doesn’t know if he’ll continue to want it for much longer.

It is starting to look like there are things he can’t leave behind, things he doesn’t want to leave behind despite the difficulty and heartache that come with them.

***

Bucky wakes up from a dream. It’s the middle of the summer and birds are singing already outside his open window. It’s not dark even if it’s more night than morning still, it’s the time of the year when nights are short. He’s breathing hard, the perspiration is cooling on his skin, and it takes a moment for his hands to stop trembling.

It wasn’t a nightmare that woke him up. He can still feel the dream on his skin, the warm hands and soft lips that are all a fantasy. He’s never felt them, didn’t let it happen, made sure he was the only one that did any touching in reality. Still, they are there, in his mind, and he can’t help but wonder what the reality would be like.

Of course, he may have lost that possibility, or maybe it never even existed. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that it would come with a host of other things he would need to face, thing he wanted to leave behind. Only maybe he doesn’t anymore, or maybe the cost doesn’t feel as great now. 

He’s tried so hard to make a life, to make an ordinary life for himself, and he’s succeeded in it too. Now he thinks that as hard as he tries, it’s not what he’s made for. Maybe he never was.

***

Bucky has a day off on the anniversary of his arrival to Whitecourt, and he spends it outdoors. It’s cold already, the day clear and crisp, no rain, no snow yet but Bucky knows it’s only a matter of time. Perfect really for wandering. He leaves his phone at the house, and spends hours without any kind of disturbance, just thinking.

He’s been coming to the conclusion that his time in the town is nearing its end, and that he won’t be here when spring comes. When he first arrived he hoped to build a life, and he did, but now he knows he can never find what he longs for here. He’s found peace, but it is not enough, he now knows. It’s impossible to leave everything behind now that he properly remembers. He could do it in Bucharest, back then there was still a distance to his memories, but no longer. As he walks back toward his place, he decides to give his notice at work and prepare to move out. He’s not sure of where he’ll go, he’s not quite ready to go back to New York yet. All he knows is he can’t stay and pretend to live a normal life.

On his street he notices the quiet. There’s not much traffic, no people around. It can only mean something has happened, and Bucky hurries inside and grabs his phone only to see his Google alerts have gone off the charts.

The first headline he sees is like a repulsor blast right in the sternum.  _ Avengers Commander Steve Rogers Killed in Action, _ it says.

There’s a pressure building in Bucky’s head, a static in his ears. He’s faintly aware of hitting the floor with his knees and falling forward, retching. There’s nothing in his stomach as he hasn’t eaten since morning, only bitter bile comes up.

He stares at the criss-cross of the seams between the floor tiles, breathing hard for a few minutes. The whole world has changed. Just moments ago he was feeling cautiously hopeful, even if he’d known that the road ahead was going to be tough, even though he’d known there was a possibility that things between him and Steve were irreparable. Still, back then he’d known it would be possible to try to make it better at least, and now it has been taken away.

Bucky closes his hands into fists, squeezes his eyes shut and counts to ten. Then he pushes himself to stand, goes to the sink and rinses his mouth. He wakes his laptop up and opens the news. The footage is of low quality, but he can see Steve get hit, sees the red, too much of it. He sees Steve fall. There’s Romanova at Steve’s side, her hands pressed over the wound, still too much red even over the black of her gloves. The rest of the Avengers seemed to have redoubled their efforts and the enemies, whoever they were, Bucky doesn’t care right now, were apparently subdued within minutes of Steve going down. Wanda is there too on the screen, the different red of her magic wrapping over Steve, and Wilson, wearing the red, white and blue of Captain America, is lifting Steve’s limp form into the arms of Iron Man who speeds away.

Bucky is still processing, letting the speculation wash over him, the footage playing in a loop on background, when there is a new development. Turns out the news outlets jumped the gun announcing Steve’s death. The official Avengers release says he’s severely injured but alive, in surgery at the Tower medical facility, and that there is no prognosis yet. 

Bucky’s knees want to go out from under him again, but he doesn’t let them this time. For all that he’s stayed in town for a year, he doesn’t have many belongings, and everything he needs is packed in his truck in fifteen minutes. He takes another five to pack food ready to eat on the way so he’ll need to stop only for gas.

Bucky calls to his employer on the way, makes a story of a family emergency, which technically isn’t even a lie. Then he calls his landlady. He’s left six months’ rent behind, and with that his ties to the small town are cut.

***

He arrives at the Avengers Tower forty hours later, having driven nearly continuously. He’s been awake just past fifty hours straight, but he knows he can stay alert for at least a day more. He considers for a second how to proceed, how to get the quickest access up, then decides to just drive to the garage entrance. He looks into the camera, and to his surprise the door opens just like that, and a light strip on the floor guides him to a parking spot and then to the elevator.

“Welcome to the Tower, Sergeant Barnes,” a female voice greets him. “I’m FRIDAY, I oversee the security and functions of this building.”

An AI then, Bucky notes, and asks the question pressing his mind. “Can I see Steve?”

“Commander Rogers is on the medical floor. I have alerted them and someone will come and take you,” the AI says as doors open on a residential floor. “The apartment on the right belongs to Commander Rogers, he’s given you access there.”

Bucky goes in, thinking that he’ll play nice for a while, even though all he wants is to see Steve right away. He takes the apartment in automatically, finds a room that’s clearly meant for guests, and goes into the bathroom. He doesn’t yet look tired, but he doesn’t much look like Bucky either. His hair is shorter than it was a year earlier when Steve last saw him, modern but the closest yet to how he looked before the war. Bucky takes off the contacts, and it’s odd seeing his natural blue eyes after so long. He hesitates for a moment, and then strips, takes a quick shower and shaves his beard off.

He’s just dressed when the door to the hallway opens, and Romanova lets herself in. She’s in civilian clothes but still dirty from the fight, even if it’s nearing two days since the operation. Must mean she hasn’t really left Steve’s side. She doesn’t say anything at first, just looks at him. Her gaze is steady, but Bucky can tell she doesn’t like him much, and that it has nothing to do with him shooting her. Bucky meets her eyes without flinching, she’s not the one whose opinion has power over him.

“Come on, then,” she says and they head for the elevator. As they descent, she continues, “He’s not going to forgive you just like that.”

“I know.”

Bucky does know. He’s been thinking about what happened between him and Steve over and over again during the last few months. At first he’d always pushed it away, but when the knowledge that he couldn’t just start over had grown stronger and stronger he’d finally let it in. Even then he’d known he’d have to make sense of it for himself before coming back. He knows he’s hurt Steve, has betrayed his trust, and now he’s facing the consequences.

Still, the way she phrased it gives Bucky hope, because he thinks she means that it will be difficult, but there is a chance that Steve will forgive him. She probably would know, since she clearly knows what happened.

“If my handcuffs weren’t completely useless with that,” she says and gestures at Bucky’s arm, “I’d cuff you to his bed. But either way, you better not leave before you sort this out or I’ll just come and drag you back.”

Bucky nods and then they’re at a door, and she presses her palm on the scanner to let them through.

Bucky knows people often describe their loved ones looking small in a hospital bed, but quite honestly Steve looks huge lying there unconscious. Bucky has gotten back countless memories of Steve bedridden before the war, mostly at home, or in hospital the few times things were especially bad. Then Steve looked small in the white bed, and compared to that he now looks big. Bucky automatically takes in all the monitoring equipment, the IVs and the bandages. All of it, as well as Steve’s still unconscious state, tell him the headlines probably weren’t too far away from the truth after all, even if in the context of the binary nature of death and living they were fundamentally wrong.

Wilson and Wanda are in the room too. From the start Bucky’s fairly sure neither one of them knows exactly what happened between him and Steve, which surprises him. He would have guessed Steve would tell Wilson if he was going to tell anyone, but apparently Bucky had been wrong about that. Apparently even though Steve trusts all three of them, Bucky hasn’t quite figured out what kinds of things he talks about to each of them. It’s another reminder that these days Bucky doesn’t really know Steve that well, that he’s changed too.

Wanda nods at him in a greeting, the most neutral of them all. Wilson sort of glowers at him, which is nothing new. Still, after Bucky has settled by the wall, Wilson is the one that explains Steve’s injuries and the prognosis for recovery. Apparently Steve got shot with some kind of an experimental gun that packed rather more punch than usual, and it had been touch and go for a while. Still, the way serum works, they’re fairly confident he’ll make a full recovery, and they should know that for sure in a few hours.

Bucky settles to wait, they all do, and it’s then that it really hits him, Steve’s injury. The first headline of Steve’s death was a shock, and after learning it wasn’t true even a severe injury was a relief because there was hope. Bucky’s been operating on that for all the time he needed to get back to New York. Now though, he looks at Steve and he wants to tremble, wants to be sick all over again at the sight of Steve lying there, even if the most severe danger has passed. It’s still too much, but Bucky doesn’t fall apart, doesn’t want to, doesn’t think he has the right for it now.

They wait, and even though the others fall asleep, Bucky doesn’t look away from Steve.

***

Almost twenty hours later Bucky is sitting on the floor in Steve’s room. He still hasn’t slept properly; he dozed a bit earlier, but not so much he’d notice it. It’s harder than he expected to be here, to face what happened between them. Still, he doesn’t regret for a moment that he came.

It’s still there, at the back of his head, the weight of the expectations. He knows that consciously Steve doesn’t expect to go back, doesn’t expect them to be the same. Steve even has said so, but it’s not always that simple. In practice it might still come up, but now Bucky knows that it’s something he wants to fight, wants to get them over. Besides, it’s only now that he’s realizing how different Steve is from what he remembers, and yet he’s still Steve, in the most fundamental of ways. It gives him hope that it goes both ways, that it helps them over all the other changes Bucky’s gone through.

It’s just him and Steve now; the others have finally gone to sleep since Steve is definitely out of the woods. Bucky fully expects that it’ll be less than a day before Steve starts to demand to be let out of the bed, even though it will be way too early. Steve has been awake twice now, coherent and talking, enough for Bucky to know what kind of a hill they have to climb instead of having to guess.

Bucky remembers now, after Steve mentioned it, that he did indeed used to sometimes make decisions for Steve’s benefit back before the war, and he gets now why Steve always was mad about it. Now he understands the helpless feeling resulting from something like that, no matter how good the intentions of the person who sidesteps asking. So leaving the way he did, telling in the letter he wanted Steve to have a good life was wrong of him. Besides, that alone should have tipped him that leaving everything behind wasn’t going to work. Because too big part of a reason to leave had been doing it for Steve, even if it wasn’t what Steve wanted at all, instead of just leaving for himself. There was no way of moving forward while carrying all that.

Now Steve has a hard time believing Bucky will stay, has a hard time trusting him, and it’s as Bucky expected. For all that Steve did have faith in him after DC, after Siberia, now he’s more cautious, and it’s all due to Bucky’s choices. He’ll have to earn the trust back, and it’s not easily done once lost.

Still, they’re on the same page in that Steve doesn’t want them to be completely done either. It allows Bucky to believe they will find something that will work for them, because they will both try, even though they don’t know what it will be yet.

Steve stirs on the bed, again more alert than he has been, and as he starts looking around, Bucky says, “Right here.”

Steve relaxes back onto his pillows, meaning Bucky was right to reassure him, to immediately stave off the worry that Bucky had left.

“Why are you on the floor?” Steve asks, frowning.

“Chairs are tricky sometimes.”

Bucky leaves it at that, although he can tell Steve guesses the reason. Sometimes it all is just too close, and now that he’s low on sleep the stress has brought his past to the surface, so it’s easier to just sit on the floor.

Steve shifts, moves his legs closer to one side of the bed, not even wincing at the movement. Either he’s healed well or he’s got some good painkillers on the IV. Or it’s just the plain old stoicism, Bucky isn’t sure. Steve nods toward the foot of the bed.

“Come up here, you’re giving me a crick on my neck, looking at you down there.”

Bucky hesitates, but Steve gets the kind of stubborn look that says he’s not going to back down, so Bucky does as he’s asked. He’s fairly sure that otherwise Steve would come to sit on the floor with him, and it’s best to be avoided for everyone’s sake.

When he’s settled, Steve asks, “Where were you?”

It’s direct, more so than Steve was in Wakanda when they talked, but then Steve has been direct about everything since he first woke up. Besides, Bucky wants to tell Steve, wants to let him in.

“In Canada. I lived in a small town some ways north-west from Edmonton.”

“What was it like?”

“Cold, boring. I worked as an electrician and shoveled snow for the old lady in the neighborhood who tried to set me up with her grandchildren. Peaceful.”

“So it was good?” Steve is serious, the question loaded in a way Bucky doesn’t quite understand.

“Well, in a way. It was all simple, it was the kind of life that could have been mistaken for happiness but wasn’t.”

“And do you want happiness?”

Some people might think of it an odd question, but not Bucky. He knows, same as he knows that Steve does, that happiness isn’t simple, and that it comes with a risk, with a cost. Always. It’s easier to be just content. But it’s not enough, not now, not for him.

“Yeah. I do,” Bucky tells Steve, and adds, just to make it absolutely clear, “I realized I wasn’t going to find it out there.”

“It’s not easy to come by, even harder to hold on,” Steve agrees.

Bucky sits there until Steve’s friends come back, rested and refreshed, and then he lets Steve talk him into going to sleep in Steve’s apartment. Bucky half expects not being able to rest in a new place that seems to be under constant surveillance, but he does fall asleep almost as soon as his head hits the pillow. He doesn’t dream, and in the next morning he wakes up with his head clear.

When he goes back to Steve, Bucky finds him in argument with the doctor about whether he can get up and stretch his legs. It’s so familiar it aches.

**Author's Note:**

> This series will be three parts in total, the next one will be moving forward from where we are left here. Again, I'm not making any promises about the posting schedule, I've got a pretty good idea of what the story is like but my writing time is fairly limited these days.
> 
> I'm also on [tumblr](http://stellahibernis.tumblr.com/)


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